The addiction and mental health treatment of individuals with substance abuse disorder (SUD) or alcohol abuse disorder (AUD) often focuses on the person’s behavioral aspects. Integrated behavioral health care helps you understand why you’ve abused alcohol or drugs, transitioning you toward recovery. However, a crucial part of the recovery process must include integrated medical care to heal the body as well.

Integrated medical care happens when a person with a SUD or an AUD receives addiction or mental health services. You’ll find a team of on-site doctors and nurses at Restore to treat health issues that frequently occur with addiction and mental health complications.

Treating Medical Issues

When you begin withdrawal, it can create problems and risks for your body. Illnesses that involve life-threatening complications can develop. These health conditions can dramatically affect your journey toward sobriety. Our team of doctors at Restore provides a continuous program that treats you with the health care you need during your progress towards recovery.

Why Is Medical Care Important?

Our doctors treat SUDs and AUDs and the mental health issues accompanying addictions and psychological or brain-related conditions. While it’s true your brain and your mental health have a serious impact on these disorders, you shouldn’t neglect your overall health care. You must treat your general health needs simultaneously with your addiction and mental health. Health care problems can complicate the diagnosis of mental health issues. On the other hand, symptoms linked to mental health issues create problems that health care professionals need to consider when making a strong baseline for your recovery. (Creating a baseline involves recognizing where you are starting from in your journey toward recovery.)

The medical care provided by the doctors and nurses at Restore addresses health care problems created by substance abuse and mental health issues. These mental health issues result from anxiety, depression and other causes. Providing medical care for mental health issues reduces your need for pain medications that may exacerbate your disorder. If you smoked marijuana for many years, you could have significant damage to your lungs, requiring medication to deal with discomfort and pain. Heroin users and those with an AUD frequently have damaged their stomach linings.

When you have a substance abuse order, it changes your brain physically and chemically. When you’re dependent on these external chemicals, simply stopping the abuse creates intense pain and withdrawal. Withdrawal not only affects your brain but the rest of your body as well. Other organs struggle with the limited access to the chemicals they’ve depended upon. The effect on your overall health can be dramatic.

The doctors and nurses at Restore can create a complete treatment plan for dealing with pain caused by addiction and move you away from seeking a form of relief that only enhances the habit.

Medical Complications of SUD and AUD

When you have a SUD or an AUD, illnesses and complications are numerous. These disorders affect health, interfering with your body’s ability to heal and function normally. Complications can include:

  • Damage to the heart such as irregular heart rhythms, cardiac arrest and heart failure because of the toxicity of drug use
  • Damage to the lungs because of excessive smoking of marijuana, which often leads to scarring that doesn’t heal
  • Using alcohol, steroids, heroin or inhalants can seriously damage the liver
  • Damage to the kidneys from using PCP, heroin, inhalants, ketamine and other drugs
  • Stomach problems including abdominal pain, reflux or severe constipation from using cocaine, alcohol, LSD or khat
  • Using tobacco, steroids or marijuana causes cancer affecting the neck, mouth, stomach and lungs

If you have a SUD or an AUD, you may have various stages of these medical conditions. However, Restore’s team of devoted doctors and nurses will help you manage them if they occur.

Statistics of Medical Conditions Caused by Addiction

In a large study done in 2017, doctors at the University of California in San Francisco compared the health care records of patients in Northern California. They looked at an equal number of patients with SUDs and patients without a substance abuse disorder. Their findings showed a strong association between substance abuse and 19 major medical illnesses, including:

  • Cardiovascular diseases
  • Cancers, including lung cancer
  • Injuries
  • Stroke
  • Cirrhosis
  • Arthritis
  • Chronic pain
  • Hepatitis C
  • Musculoskeletal disorders
  • Opioid-related overdoses
  • Respiratory deficits

Another study done in Ohio in 2019 showed a strong connection to higher mortality rates for people with hypertension or type 2 diabetes who had substance abuse problems. Their substance abuse disorders greatly exacerbated their health care problems.

Overprescription and Medical Complications

Many people seen by the health care professionals at Restore have a SUD or an AUD and suffer from severe depression or anxiety. Underlying health complications can be why these people face mental health issues. To deal with pain, many people rely on painkillers such as opioids, or those struggling with depression and a lack of energy use drugs to feel “normal.”

Often these individuals turn to their family doctors for these medical needs before coming to Restore to deal with mental health needs and a SUD or an AUD. This creates a lack of cohesive care. It’s easy to overprescribe medications that can limit recovery healing when the right hand is unsure what the left hand is doing. When one location like Restore manages all your health care needs, you eliminate this risk. Instead, you have a devoted team of doctors and nurses working on your addiction and health care needs simultaneously.

A Strong Baseline Enhances Chances of Success During Recovery

Addiction creates long-term effects that can limit a successful recovery. By the same token, if you have health care problems and seek care for them without addressing what might be causing them, such as an AUD or a SUD, you again limit your chances of successful recovery. This is where integrated medical care makes an enormous difference. When you enter the treatment program at Restore, you create a strong baseline, free from other health issues, that provides you with your best chance at long-term success.

Our medical integration services address the health issues that limit this long-term success. First, we treat your existing and underlying health care problems. Then we create a customized treatment plan that addresses your recovery’s mental and physical needs.

Our integrated medical care model ensures you or your loved one will receive medical care alongside the treatment programs we offer for SUDs and AUDs. Our compassionate team of counselors is available 24/7 in our South Florida location to help you begin your journey to recovery. Call us at (877) 594-3566.